inDIVISIBLE by Ryan Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

would likely never see my mother again, but I would pay that price to save her life. And that knowledge is all it took to spur me into action.
    Re membering the bug, I went back to the bathroom and made gagging noises before getting another drink of water. It had been bad enough to have them know where I was but to realize they listened to everything I said and did was nauseating in and of itself.
    My heart thudded. They knew I was home alone and if they were intent on taking me out, they could easily make me disappear today. I bolted for my mother’s room and pulled my father’s chest from beneath his bed. The corners of his personal papers were creased, the edges of the stacks not lining perfectly as I’d seen them last. Had my mother gone through them or someone else?
    I closed the lid and shoved it back before going to the closet. Below his black suits were his black dress shoes, all neatly arranged on a shoe rack that had been built into the wall behind it.
    I had seen him fiddling in his closet before, through a crack in the curtains between our rooms, and I knew there was something else in there.
    I ran my fingers along the rack but nothing felt out of place. I stood, paced the room and opened his top drawer. His clothes all sat neatly folded, the second and third drawers the same. When I got to the bottom drawer, however, his sleeping clothes were askew. I felt along the bottom of the drawer and found nothing. I pulled the drawer out and would have missed the subtle clue if I hadn’t seen something similar before. A paperclip lay at the bottom of the dresser in the corner as if it had fallen off the dresser or from a pocket. A tiny hole beside it made its use obvious and I unwound the paperclip and pressed it into the hole. Whatever waited inside the hole gave and the tension fell away, but nothing else changed. I searched the dresser before returning to the closet. Perhaps I’d been wrong about the closet, the dresser, all of it—but I couldn’t give up without trying one more time.
    I felt along the shoe rack again and it moved slightly. My breathing came in gasps now, my hands frantic as I checked the clock to see that an entire hour had passed since I last gagged into the toilet.
    I moaned the sickest sound I could manage and pulled on the rack. It slid to the side and I found my father’s stash. Notebooks piled atop one another, a pen clipped on one cover. I grabbed them, pushed the shoe rack back into place and wondered how to reset the lock only briefly before realizing I didn’t have time.
    My PCA beeped, indicating the call from the doctor I’d been waiting on. I took a calming breath and returned to my room. I dropped the books on my bed out of view of the monitor and swiped my hand to sign in. I didn’t need to force myself to look flushed. The search had done that by itself. The screen came to life and a thick woman in a lab coat greeted me.
    “Brynn Aberdie,” she said, her face too smooth, eyes too wide.
    I nodded.
    “You don’t look well.” The words were clipped, automatic.
    I coughed, a result of the dust from the search I was sure, but it worked for the doctor too. “I don’t feel well either.”
    She cleared her throat and moved back from her camera, a subconscious reaction meant to avoid my germs. “I read over your symptoms. There is no need to come to the office but you do need an immune booster. I’m sending one over in the next half hour. You must drink the entire bottle, rinse the remaining medication down the drain and use the recycling bin to return the empty bottle.”
    It was a script I’m sure she’d read at least a dozen times that morning, and I simply nodded.
    “Be sure to get plenty of rest. ” Her face moved closer to the camera, her nose growing as the lens distorted her image. “This bug that’s going around can get pretty nasty.”
                  Bug . I forced myself not to look at my hand, clutching my stomach instead. “I can